Why do I remember more of the neglect?
My dad abused me in literally every way. My sister luckily didn’t get the physical or sexual abuse that I did. But we were both neglected and our safety was put in danger regularly. He seemed to have no understanding of what things were safe for kids (ie skiing double black diamonds at 8 years old, hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon at 11 or younger, not sharing water or snacks on hikes, letting us get too cold, leaving me alone in the single digit ages, taking us 10+ mile bike rides, etc) but I know this wasn’t the case as he was a doctor, so he had to have known.
Why do I remember more of the neglect and child endangerment than I do of the physical and sexual abuse? All my memories of the physical and sexual abuse are fragmented. I don’t have a single complete memory. But the memories of neglect and endangerment are almost all complete. They also don’t really bother me. In fact, some of them, like being left alone at the Natural History Museum in NYC, are good memories. I liked when I got to explore my favorite exhibits by myself for hours. I could hyperfixate to my heart’s content without having to worry about social niceties.
Is it because these memories were ‘less’ traumatic for me and therefore there isn’t the dissociation/ metal block like I have for the physical and sexual abuse? Why didn’t these things bother me? I was bothered when he’d bike ahead of me and I’d try to keep up (and couldn’t, I had to learn my way around the city very young because otherwise I wouldn’t get home), which resulted in almost getting hit by cars numerous times.
Posted Dec 29, 2025, 6:40 PM UTC